The Obama administration’s six-month delay in approving new offshore drilling leases in federal waters will become a new three-year ban, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quietly told reporters last Friday. Which means that no new oil and gas leases will be approved during President Obama’s term even though two –thirds of the American public supports such activity, according to a December 2009 Rasmussen poll.
Sixty percent also believe that gas and oil prices will drop if the government allows offshore drilling, opening up an estimate 14 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas
On July 14, 2008 President George W. Bush lifted an executive ban on Outer Continental Shelf leasing. On October 1, 2008, in a bipartisan agreement, Congress lifted another longstanding ban on new oil and gas leasing in the OCS.
Drilling was supposed to begin this July. But Salazar said he intends to discard the 2010-2015 lease plan developed by the Bush administration in favor of a new plan that won’t even go into effect until 2012.
“Secretary Salazar has finally confirmed what had long been feared – that the Obama Administration has no intention of opening up new areas for offshore drilling during his four-years in office,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, the ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee.
So for the next three years and probably more, trillions of dollars in domestic energy assets will remain untouched while billions of dollars more are spent on foreign oil.
Almost every element of Barack Obama’s once-heralded new “reset” foreign policy of a year ago has either been reset or likely soon will be.
Consider Obama’s approach to the 8-year-old war on terror. Plans made more than a year ago to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay by January 2010 have stalled. Despite loud proclamations about trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, in a civilian court in New York, such an absurd pledge will probably never be kept.
Talk of trying our own former CIA interrogators for being too tough on terrorist suspects has also come to nothing. And why not put an end to the second-guessing of anti-terrorism protocols since the Obama administration, in a single year, has quadrupled the number of assassinations by Predator drones of suspected Taliban and al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan? After all, the targeted killing of hundreds of suspects is far more questionable than waterboarding three confessed killers.
The Obama administration seems to have embraced the once widely criticized Bush-Petraeus strategy in Iraq of gradual withdrawal in concert with Iraqi benchmarks. Indeed, Vice President Joe Biden in Orwellian fashion claims that our victory in Iraq may be one of the administration’s “greatest achievements.” Was it not a defeatist Biden who not long ago advocated the trisection of Iraq into separate nations?
And after months of waiting, Obama finally sent more troops to Afghanistan, adopting a surge strategy that looks a lot like Bush’s 2007 escalation in Iraq — this after he once assured the country that Bush’s surge, in a tactical sense, “wasn’t working.”
Almost all of the once derided Bush anti-terrorism protocols are still in place — wiretaps, intercepts, tribunals, and renditions. And given that there were more foiled radical Islamic terrorist plots in 2009 than in any year since 2001, President Obama will probably stop his outreach speeches to the Islamic world and his serial recitations of American sins.
Our efforts to reach out and negotiate directly with Iran failed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton effectively acknowledged the impasse, citing the unexpected de facto military coup by the Revolutionary Guard. In any case, does anyone believe that more Obama speeches, videos, new diplomacy and imposed deadlines will halt an Iranian nuclear bomb?
President Obama was once a fierce critic of the former administration’s Mideast policies. A year ago, he thought new outreach to the Palestinians and rebuke to the Israelis might lead to a breakthrough. It did not. In a Time magazine interview with Joe Klein, Obama confesses of the 70-year struggle: “I’ll be honest with you. This is just really hard.”
Obama assumed we could borrow a trillion dollars from the communist Chinese and then turn around and lecture them on Tibet, human rights, and international trade and currency — sort of like a debtor admonishing his lender about his bank’s shortcomings. Now the Chinese claim that their relations with America are “seriously disrupted,” as they seek to dethrone the dollar as the global currency.
I don’t think there will be anymore grand deals with the Russians either, the sort that saw the United States withdraw anti-missile defense accords with Poland and the Czech Republic in hopes of halting the Iranian nuclear program. Instead, Russia and China are blocking American efforts to impose tougher sanctions on Iran.
For all the outreach to Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan strongman is still causing trouble in Latin America. Continued…
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., left, talks with Sen. John Cornyn, D-Texas, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 9, 2010, as they walk to McConnell’s office, following the weekly caucus luncheons. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)
(CNSNews.com) – Republicans appear to be winning the battle of ideas, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey of American voters that found the GOP is trusted more than Democrats on eight out of 10 policy issues.The survey, released on March 5, shows that Republicans are trusted more than Democrats on issues ranging from the economy to abortion.
The issue at the forefront of Americans’ minds – although not at the top of Congress’ agenda – is the economy, where a plurality of the public, 46 percent, trust Republicans, the survey found.
Only 41 percent of Americans trust Democrats more on the economy, marking a major turnaround during a year of rising unemployment despite nearly $800 billion in federal stimulus spending. At the start of President Barack Obama’s first term, January 2009, Democrats enjoyed a nine-point lead over Republicans on the issue.
Republicans are also trusted more, and by a similar margin, on what has become Obama’s and the Democrats’ signature issue: health care. Forty-five percent of Americans trust Republicans on health care issues, while only 42 percent put their faith in Democrats.
That gap widens among independents, who trust Republicans 45-to-29 percent over Democrats.
On taxes, Republicans hold an 11-point lead over Democrats, 48 to 37 percent. This gap has narrowed since February, the survey found, when Republicans enjoyed a 16-point advantage.
Republicans have a 10-point lead on national security issues, despite the fact that the Obama administration has continued many Bush-era policies and has increased U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.
Rasmussen found that 47 percent of Americans place their trust in Republicans on national security issues compared with only 37 percent who trust Democrats.
Republicans have a smaller advantage on the more narrow issue of the war in Iraq, with 42 percent of the public trusting the GOP and only 38 percent putting more faith in Democrats.
Neither party earns much trust on the issue of immigration, though Republicans hold a slight advantage there as well. Thirty-nine percent of Americans have more faith in Republicans, while 34 percent place more trust in Democrats on the issue.
(A separate Rasmussen Reports poll found that 67 percent of Americans think that illegal immigrants place a “significant strain” on the federal budget.)
Americans also trust Republicans over Democrats by a small margin on Social Security, with 42 percent saying they trust the GOP and 38 percent saying they trust Democrats.
Surprisingly, Rasmussen reported an identical split on a different social issue: abortion.
Previous surveys had shown Republicans with a wide margin on the contentious issue; a margin which has shrunk to a mere four-point divide. Forty-two percent of Americans told Rasmussen they trusted Republicans more on the issue, while 38 percent said they put more trust in Democrats.
Democrats enjoyed a lead over Republicans on two issues: education and government ethics.
Americans reported that they trusted Democrats more than Republicans – 41 percent to 38 percent – on education issues, a finding that Rasmussen reported had swung back from a four-point Republican advantage in its previous survey.
Americans also said they had more faith that Democrats would run a more ethical government than Republicans. From the “likely voters” surveyed, 35 percent put more faith in the Democrats compared to 28 percent who trusted Republicans more to run an ethical government – 27 percent said they did not know who they trusted to run government ethically.
For these results, two surveys of 1,000 likely voters were conducted by Rasmussen Reports Feb. 27 – March 2, 2010. The margin of error for each survey was plus or minus three percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.
Think you’ve had a rough day? Watch as the Mexican newsman starts to deliver his report in a standing position, then crouches as the gunfire starts, and finally attempts to tunnel beneath the pavement with his fingernails to escape the fusillade of deadly fire erupting all around him. This is what is happening in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, about 180 miles southwest of my hometown of Brownsville, Texas. And it scares the beegeezus out of me. It should scare you, too.
As you watch the video, try to think of a really good reason why we should suspend construction of the border fence.
Sunday brought the welcome news that another Taliban leader was captured by Pakistani authorities in Karachi. Initial reports were that it was the infamous Adam Gadahn, who was born and raised in California but then joined the Taliban, for whom he has acted as a taunting mouthpiece from somewhere in Pakistan, urging terrorist attacks on Americans. Subsequent reports said that it was not Gadahn but another U.S.-born Taliban leader who goes by the name Abu Yahya.
Whoever it is the Pakistanis have captured, the Obama administration will soon likely face an important decision, because the captive appears to be an American citizen. If the Pakistanis hand him over to the U.S., or even just give the U.S. access to him while he remains in their custody, the administration will need to decide whether to treat him as a criminal suspect or an enemy combatant (or “enemy belligerent,” as the administration refers to them). Gadahn was indicted during the Bush administration on charges of treason, which is a criminal offense, but he can nonetheless be treated as an enemy combatant. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for instance, was indicted on criminal charges in the 1990s but has been held for years at Guantanamo as an enemy combatant.
The Obama administration will face the same choice they did with the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — Mirandize him and treat him like a criminal suspect, or don’t Mirandize him and begin interrogating him and without the right to an attorney during questioning.
The legal authority to take the latter course is beyond doubt. The Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that a U.S. citizen captured on an overseas battlefield may lawfully be treated as an enemy combatant. Attorney General Eric Holder and White House adviser John Brennan cannot claim here, as they did with Abdulmutallab (who is not a U.S. citizen but was captured on U.S. soil), that the authority to do this is unclear so the better course is the civilian process. The administration is perfectly within its power to hold and interrogate an American Taliban leader captured in Pakistan as an enemy combatant, and they know it.
So there are no excuses this time (though there were no good ones for Abdulmutallab either). The captive should be designated as an enemy combatant and interrogated without Miranda warnings. A Taliban commander could be a treasure trove of valuable intelligence on the enemy’s plans in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the U.S. This intelligence could save the lives of our troops, our citizens, and our allies. It would be absolute folly to tell him he has a right to remain silent, get him a lawyer, and ask him and his lawyer if he might be willing to talk to us at some point in exchange for leniency. It would be nuts to wait five weeks to find out whether his family might persuade him to talk.
Nothing prevents the administration from treating the captive as a criminal defendant — and trying him in civilian court — later on, after he has been interrogated as an enemy combatant. But if the administration goes the Miranda route from the start, they will be needlessly hamstringing themselves. It’s time to put intelligence gathering ahead of the “rights” of those who wage war on us.
— Bill Burck is a former federal prosecutor and deputy counsel to Pres. George W. Bush. Dana M. Perino is former press secretary to President Bush.
There’s nothing quite so satisfying as being proved right. We hate to say we told you so, but…
The Washington Postreports this morning that the president’s advisers will recommend that Khalid Sheik Muhammed be tried by military commission, not civilian trial. This leak from the White House means it’s all over for Attorney General Eric Holder’s dream, fueled by ideological fervor, of trying KSM in civilian court in downtown Manhattan. Weeks ago, we gave nine reasons why this turnaround would happen, here and here. One particularly important reason was the likelihood a federal judge would throw out the charges against KSM because the attorney general’s and White House’s extraordinarily prejudicial comments guaranteeing KSM’s conviction and execution deprived him of a fair trial. Once the White House fully appreciated just how disastrous the attorney general’s decision was, they shoved him aside and took over.
Anthony Romero of the ACLU tells the Washington Post that the White House’s decision will be “a death blow to [President Obama’s] own Justice Department.” Romero is half right — it is a death blow to the current Justice leadership and President Obama is partly to blame for allowing Holder to be in charge of the decision for a time. But let’s not forget the attorney general himself. With stunning arrogance, Holder imposed his will on New York without consulting the mayor or the police chief. After all, Holder doesn’t feel it’s necessary to consult with the intelligence services when a terrorist is captured trying to blow up an airplane, so why would he consult with mere local officials? Well, those local officials were more than Holder bargained for, and once they realized how expensive, disruptive, and totally unnecessary a civilian trial in New York would be, they told Holder to take his trial somewhere else.
The Post is also reporting that the White House is looking to cut a deal with Sen. Lindsey Graham to close Guantanamo in exchange for trying detainees in military commissions. As we have said before, we haven’t heard a justification for closing Guantanamo that would outweigh the huge downsides. Guantanamo remains the best place to hold these terrorists. Once they set foot on U.S. soil, they will acquire a whole set of rights to which they are not currently entitled — not to mention the security risks of turning the military base in the U.S. which would hold them into a prime target for al-Qaeda.
Once again, some will howl that the White House has a communications problem — but its real problem is one of policy. No amount of spin could make this story look good, but the White House will try to claim victory if they get a deal to close Guantanamo. But that would be “victory” achieved by PR stunt because that’s all closing Guantanamo would amount to — an appeal to the hearts and minds of jihadists and the far Left overseas, at the expense of common sense and our national security. And we’ve got a bridge to sell anyone who believes this crowd will fall in love with America once Guantanamo is closed.
When Congress passes spending bills for billions and trillions of dollars that they can’t pay for they have to borrow. There is a point when there is no one left to borrow from but the laws requiring the spending still exist. They have to raise taxes to continue the payments required by the spending laws whether its for building roads, unemployment payments or military actions.
So when they need to keep spending because the law requires it but no one can or will lend them money, they have to print money. Inflation. The amount and value of goods, services, commodities, crops, etc in the country remain the same. The price goes up because those that can pay more do pay more so the products sell at the higher price. If you cannot afford to pay the higher price you lose. You have to give up other things, prioritize.
Likewise since the prices of our goods are higher other countries wanting to buy from us have to pay the new higher prices. They can buy them at the new price or buy them from another country or produce them within their own country. They originally bought from us because we made them cheaper or we were a better source.
So if other countries stop buying from us our workers producing goods and services must produce less. Unemployment goes up. So now we have higher prices for everyday necessities and fewer jobs. This is why inflation is called the cruelest tax of all. The government and only the government can create inflation since it alone has the power to literally print money.
In the last year we have run up more national debt than all previous presidents collectively. We now propose to add government spending for healthcare which is estimated to cost from $1 trillion to $2.5 trillion depending on which politician is giving the speech.
Government can also cover some of its costs by raising taxes. The rich already pay about 60% of all income tax. There’s not a whole lot more you can take from them. They simply avoid taking income. They don’t cash in IRA’s, 401K’s and they don’t sell investments when capital gains taxes are too high. So that’s why taxes must be raised on people who are not rich.
So unemployment will rise. Prices will rise. Taxes will rise. Who wins. I can’t think of anyone but it does remind me of the depression of the 1930’s and third world countries today.
During depressions, and they were routine prior to the 1930’s, families had to live together, several generations in one house. One person may have had a job and they had to feed parents, siblings and children. My dad told me his father had him and his siblings move into his house so whatever wages were earned by the family saved the family residence and fed the family.
People in Europe and third world countries live without today not by choice. When the government is taxing 50, 60, 70% of your income whether in income tax, sales tax or permits and fees and prices are high you have no choice but to do without.
Since we didn’t have a depression or deep recession since the 1930’s we know it isn’t necessary. By reducing taxes and inducing growth we have avoided it in the past. Lower taxes means families have more disposable income per paycheck. They can buy necessities. Factories receive demand for more goods. By less government spending there is no need to print money. Prices don’t rise for us and for countries that import from us.
We can stop run away government spending now. We do not have to “reform” the entire country to make health care available to the few who do not get it nor to provide for catastrophic medical situations so people don’t have to go bankrupt. We do not need to grow government so it can keep on doing what it has been doing for the last several decades but with more employees.
(This is my personal opinion, not necessarily John Faulk’s.)
Americans should beware when members of Congress talk about “reform” and “comprehensive,” because those words usually cover a lot of mischief. The latest example of this legerdemain is the so-called Patent Reform now aggressively pushed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Since we’ve outsourced millions of well-paying American jobs overseas, the one asset we have to maintain our American standard of living is innovation superiority. The United States is the world’s leader in technology innovation, which is due to our private-enterprise economic system, our constitutional protections of private property and most especially our unique system of granting patents to inventors.
Other countries can produce things we invent more cheaply because of the pitiful wages they pay, but they have a dismal record of inventing anything. Lacking expertise in innovation, some foreign countries concentrate on stealing ours.
Communist China is the world’s top producer of illegal copies of music, movies, software, designer apparel, medicines and other U.S. products. Chinese agents stole or illegally purchased high-tech machines and systems, restricted electronic components, embargoed components for military weapons and communications systems in order to copy them.
Now that communist China has become America’s banker, China is flexing its muscles in a new way that threatens our economy and our jobs. The buzzword is “indigenous innovation.”
China has promulgated new anti-American trade rules that prohibit imports of our products unless they are based on intellectual property that is developed and/or owned in China, and associated trademarks are originally registered in China.
These rules mean that U.S. products cannot be sold in China unless the U.S. companies give China their current patents plus their research and development of new products. This targets our most innovative manufacturing and service industries, including computers, software and telecommunications.
The Chinese government has issued a catalog of products that are subject to this obnoxious rule, and the list is expected to be expanded soon to other industries. China’s “indigenous innovation” rule will exclude many major U.S. firms from the Chinese market or require them to give China their patents and advanced technology.
Yongshun Cheng, former senior judge and deputy director of the Intellectual Property Division of Beijing High People’s Court, stated bluntly that the proposed U.S. patent bill is bad news for American innovation and good news for foreign infringers. He pointed out that the bill “is friendlier to the infringers than to the patentees in general, as it will make the patent less reliable, easier to be challenged and cheaper to be infringed.”
President Obama has promised that exports are the key to our recovery from the current recession. But China’s “China First” policy drives a dagger into our hope for more exports. Free trade now means free to China.
Nineteen U.S. trade associations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable, signed a joint letter to six Obama administration agencies calling China’s behavior “alarming.” The letter warns that this rule poses “an immediate danger to U.S. companies” and to their “ability to create jobs here at home.”
The longtime consensus among government and business elites has been that as China became richer, its interests would become more like ours. It didn’t work out that way because China is a communist totalitarian country striving for military and economic superiority.
Our American patent system is a precious American property right the Founding Fathers put into the U.S. Constitution even before they added freedom of religion and speech. The inventor’s exclusive right to his discovery for limited times was unique in 1787 – it still is unique, and 220 years of experience have proved it is the world’s best system because the overwhelming majority of great inventions are American.
Our successful system is under attack not only by the foreigners who want to steal our innovations, but also by some big corporations. Most of our breakthrough inventions have come not from big corporations, but from independent inventors and small companies.
The big corporations, however, have the lobbyists and the lawyers, and they are breathing hard on Congress to change our patent law to make it easier to challenge the patents granted to small inventors. The big corporations want to challenge a patent after it is issued (known as post-grant review), thereby delaying for many years the inventor’s ability to use his own invention and forcing him to spend a fortune on litigation.
Congress should hold a new hearing to listen to the views of real inventors. We also want to hear what the Obama administration and Congress will do to protect U.S. innovation, inventors and small businesses from Chinese theft and arrogant attempts to force us to give away all our patents.
While the country and the Congress have their eyes on today’s dog-and-pony show on socialized medicine, House Democrats last night stashed a new provision in the intelligence bill which is to be voted on today. It is an attack on the CIA: the enactment of a criminal statute that would ban “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” (See here, scoll to p. 32.)
The provision is impossibly vague — who knows what “degrading” means? Proponents will say that they have itemized conduct that would trigger the statute (I’ll get to that in a second), but it is not true. The proposal says the conduct reached by the statute “includes but is not limited to” the itemized conduct. (My italics.) That means any interrogation tactic that a prosecutor subjectively believes is “degrading” (e.g., subjecting a Muslim detainee to interrogation by a female CIA officer) could be the basis for indicting a CIA interrogator.
The act goes on to make it a crime to use tactics that have been shown to be effective in obtaining life saving information and that are far removed from torture.
“Waterboarding” is specified. In one sense, I’m glad they’ve done this because it proves a point I’ve been making all along. Waterboarding, as it was practiced by the CIA, is not torture and was never illegal under U.S. law. The reason the Democrats are reduced to doing this is: what they’ve been saying is not true — waterboarding was not a crime and it was fully supported by congressional leaders of both parties, who were told about it while it was being done. On that score, it is interesting to note that while Democrats secretly tucked this provision into an important bill, hoping no one would notice until it was too late, they failed to include in the bill a proposed Republican amendment that would have required full and complete disclosure of records describing the briefings members of Congress received about the Bush CIA’s enhanced interrogation program. Those briefings, of course, would establish that Speaker Pelosi and others knew all about the program and lodged no objections. Naturally, members of Congress are not targeted by this criminal statute — only the CIA.
More to the point, this shows how politicized law-enforcement has become under the Obama Democrats. They could have criminalized waterboarding at any time since Jan. 20, 2009. But they waited until now. Why? Because if they had tried to do it before now, it would have been a tacit admission that waterboarding was not illegal when the Bush CIA was using it. That would have harmed the politicized witch-hunt against John Yoo and Jay Bybee, a key component of which was the assumption that waterboarding and the other tactics they authorizied were illegal. Only now, when that witch-hunt has collapsed, have the Democrats moved to criminalize these tactics. It is transparently partisan.
In any event, waterboarding is not defined in the bill. As Marc Thiessen has repeatedly demonstrated, there is a world of difference between the tactic as administered by the CIA and the types of water-torture methods that have been used throughout history. The waterboarding method used by the CIA involved neither severe pain nor prolonged mental harm. But it was highly unpleasant and led especially hard cases like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (i.e., well-trained, committed, America-hating terrorists) to give us information that saved American lives. The method was used sparingly — on only three individuals, and not in the last seven years. The American people broadly support the availability of this non-torture tactic in a dire emergency. Yet Democrats not only want to make it unavailable; they want to subject to 15 years’ imprisonment any interrogator who uses it.
What’s more, the proposed bill is directed at “any officer or employee of the intelligence community” conducting a “covered interrogation.” The definition of “covered interrogation” is sweeping — including any interrogation done outside the U.S., in the course of a person’s official duties on behalf of the government. Thus, if the CIA used waterboarding in training its officers or military officers outside the U.S., this would theoretically be indictable conduct under the statute.
Bureaucratic Shenanigans
As we’ve previously noted, there is a powerful element within the State Department that is averse to security and does its best to thwart security programs. DSS special agents refer to these people as Black Dragons. Even when Congress provides clear guidance to the State Department regarding issues of security (e.g., the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986), the Black Dragons do their best to strangle the programs, and this constant struggle produces discernable boom-and-bust cycles, as Congress provides money for new security programs and the Black Dragons, who consider security counterproductive for diplomacy and armed State Department special agents undiplomatic, use their bureaucratic power to cut off those programs.
Compounding this perennial battle over security funding has been the incredible increase in protective responsibilities that the DSS has had to shoulder since 9/11. The bureau has had to provide a large number of agents to protect U.S. diplomats in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan and even staffed and supervised the protective detail for Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a few years. Two DSS special agents were also killed while protecting the huge number of U.S diplomats assigned to reconstruction efforts in Iraq. One agent was killed in a rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the other by a suicide car-bomb attack in Mosul.
The demands of protection and bureaucratic strangulation by the Black Dragons, who have not embraced the concept of the ARSO-I program, has resulted in the OCI program being deployed very slowly. This means that of the 200 positions envisioned and internally programmed by Bureau of Consular Affairs and DSS in 2004, only 50 ARSO-I agents have been assigned to posts abroad as of this writing, and a total of 123 ARSO-I agents are supposed to be deployed by the end of 2011. The other 77 ARSO-I positions were taken away from the OCI program by the department and used to provide more secretarial positions.
In the wake of State Department heel-dragging, other agencies are now seeking to fill the void.
ADVISORY, Feb. 19, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi is briefed on the benefits of Recovery Act funds allocated to the Houston Ship Channel in closed-door session by Congressman Gene Green, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and Congressman Al Green and industry leaders, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Port of Houston Authority.
WHAT: Press availability with Members of Congress and industry
leaders regarding impact of Recovery Act Funds
WHEN: Monday, February 22
Pre-set: 9:30 a.m.
Press may briefly film b-roll at top of roundtable
at 10 a.m.
Press Conference: 10:30-11a.m.
WHERE: PHA Executive Office Building, 4th floor
111 East Loop North
Houston, Texas
(Directions: From Loop 610 East, take Exit 29.)
PHOTO OP: Press Conference to be held in front of a working dock in
full operation
RSVP: Press must RSVP to http://www.portofhouston.com/rsvp.html
CONTACTS: Lisa Ashley-Whitlock, Director of Corporate Communications,
Port of Houston Authority
Office: 713-670-2644 Cell: 832-247-8179
Argentina James, Vice President of Public Affairs,
Port of Houston Authority
Office: 713-670-2568 Cell: 713-306-6822
Pelosi Press Office (202) 226-7616
About the Port of Houston Authority
The Port of Houston Authority owns and operates the public facilities located along
the Port of Houston, the 25-mile-long complex of diversified public and private
facilities designed for handling general cargo, containers, grain and other dry bulk
materials, project and heavy lift cargo, and other types of cargo. Each year, there
are more than 7,000 vessel calls at the port, which ranks first in the U.S. in
foreign waterborne tonnage and second in overall total tonnage. The port authority
plays a vital role in ensuring navigational safety along the Houston Ship Channel,
which has been instrumental in Houston’s development as a center of international
trade. The Barbours Cut Container Terminal and Central Maintenance Facility are
the first of any U.S. port facilities to develop and implement an innovative
Environmental Management System that meets the rigorous standards of ISO
14001. The second recertification of those facilities in 2009 included an extension
for the state-of-the-art Bayport Container Terminal. PHA is the first port authority
in the world to receive ISO 28000:2007 certification for Port Police and the
perimeter security operations at both the Barbours Cut and Bayport Terminals.
Additionally, the port is an approved delivery point for Coffee “C” futures contracts
traded on the New York Board of Trade’s Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange. For
more information, please visit www.portofhouston.com
An immigration judge in Dallas on Friday ordered an outspoken Islamic leader deported after the U.S. government alleged he had ties to terrorist groups in the Middle East.
Nabil Sadoun, a Dallas resident and former board member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, was deported to his native Jordan after he failed to appear at his immigration hearing. He entered the U.S. in August 1993.
Sadoun’s attorney, Kimberly Kinser, said he was already in Jordan and was unable to return to Texas because the government had taken his permanent resident card, or green card.
She denied he was tied to any terrorist groups.
In the hearing, Judge Anthony Rogers of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, said Sadoun “made a decision to leave the U.S.” and forfeited his right to fight his deportation. He said the decision was final and could not be appealed.
In court, the judge made vague references to the government’s voluminous motion to deport him, including alleged involvement with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The judge concluded Sadoun lied on government forms when he denied he was a member.
The judge also indicated there was evidence Sadoun contributed to the Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which was the largest Islamic charity in the United States. Prosecutors convicted the group of funneling money to terrorist groups and several of its leaders were sent to prison. In the case, CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator.
The judge’s comments in court provided the only window into the allegations against Sadoun. The documents detailing charges made by the Department of Homeland Security were not publicly available.
Ibrahim Hooper, a CAIR spokesman, said Sadoun left the organization several months ago.
Asked the reason for his departure, Hooper said, “Board members come on, (and) they leave.”
Right, they leave to jail. They leave the country, i.e., they are deported. Here’s a picture of Honest Ibe and the deported Hamas-linked CAIR exec on CAIR’s website – expect it to disappear soon.
Yaser Tabbara, Ahmed Rehab, Ibrahim Hooper, Safaa Zarzour, Nihad Awad, and Nabil Sadoun (sitting).
Yaser Tabbara, Ahmed Rehab, Ibrahim Hooper, Safaa Zarzour, Nihad Awad, and Nabil Sadoun (sitting).